Sins of the Blood

by Margaret Frazer

  “Come sit,” the youth said quietly. “Rest.”

  “Rest,” Lady Ermentrude agreed thickly. “Sit.”

  She let him help her, jerking Thomasine along, toward a chair set near the long trestle table in the room’s center. She sank into its cushion with a groan, her eyes shut but her grip still strong on Thomasine as she growled, her voice distorted with anger, “They can’t force you. Remember that.”

  “No one is forcing me to anything!” Thomasine cried. “Stop saying that!”

  Lady Ermentrude, eyes tightly closed and breathing heavily, said only, “No ssssacrifice to wickednessss.” With her chin drawn in toward her throat and her head moving restlessly from side to side, she drew the sibilants out like sizzling fat.

  “Would you care to wash your hands, my lady?”

  Dame Frevisse’s voice was cool and smooth as silver, deep with respect. As Lady Ermentrude had sunk into the chair, Dame Frevisse had come from among the gathered, staring servants and was standing now in front of her, a wide, shallow basin in her hands and a white linen towel over her arm. Lady Ermentrude lifted her head almost blindly, her eyelids half closed over her distended eyes as if the light were too strong for her even in the shadowed hall. There was an effort of comprehension behind her flushed face. Shaking her head, she let go of Thomasine’s arm to feel with both hands at her throat with a bewildered and oddly feeble gesture. “Th-th-thirssss-tee.”

  Thomasine, freed, stayed where she was, held by a glance from Dame Frevisse and an uncertainty that her legs would hold her if she tried to move.

  Dame Frevisse, speaking in her same careful voice, asked again, “Would you care to wash your hands, my lady?” and stepped forward to kneel before Lady Ermentrude, holding out the basin. Lady Ermentrude, answering familiar form with familiar gesture, let loose her throat to dip her fingers into the water. But the bewildered look stayed on her face, and her mouth, like a fish newly caught, opened and closed soundlessly.

  “Thomasine,” Dame Frevisse said softly, not taking her eyes from Lady Ermentrude’s face, “would you fetch us a sop of warmed milk and honey to soothe my lady’s throat?”

  Thomasine dared back away a step, then another, and, safe out of Lady Ermentrude’s reach, bobbed a quick curtsey before turning to flee from the hall.

  In the enormity of her terror at Lady Ermentrude’s drunken madness, she forgot to be afraid of the yard and everyone in it. A gabble of voices met her on the doorstep, but her only thought was of escape, however temporary, into the cloister kitchen, until her brother-in-law called out to her, “Thomasine! What’s toward in there?”

  He and Isobel were still mounted on their palfreys, their few followers clustered behind them. To Thomasine they were familiar and safe, and she went down the steps to them quickly, saying in hushed tones, “She’s drunk. She rode in drunk and raving.”

  “About what?” Isobel asked with sharp concern.

  “About my not becoming a nun. She keeps saying over and over again she means to stop it, that she won’t let it happen. This is not like her usual teasing. It’s worse. It’s... different.”

  Isobel turned a worried look on her husband. His own face was as puzzled and concerned as hers, but it was Isobel who said, “She wasn’t drunk when she came on us yesterday, but she was raving then. It must be madness.”

  Thomasine’s eyes widened at this echo of her own thought. She whispered, “I thought that, too.”

  Sir John swung down from his horse. He was tall and tanned, with firmly drawn features, easily handsome. Six years of marriage and its comforts had begun to thicken his waist and soften the flesh along his jaw, but at nearly thirty he still had the clear, fair skin and easy eyes of youth, as if fatherhood and the responsibilities of lordship were not yet enough to settle him.

  One of his men came forward to lead his horse away as he moved to his wife’s side. She leaned forward into his hands, and he lifted her as lightly to the ground as if she were a child. She matched Thomasine with her fair hair and green-hazel eyes, but was five years her elder, had borne three children, and was more mature in face and body, a woman where Thomasine was still a girl. Her eyebrows were plucked into thin, fashionable arches, and her riding dress was in the latest style, wide-sleeved and belted high under her fashionably small breasts, the collar laid out neatly around her shoulders. She neither wore nor needed demeaning face paints; her complexion was nearly as fresh and clear as Thomasine’s own. Now, with troubled expression, she turned from Sir John to Thomasine and asked, “But wherefore mad? She arrived yesterday without warning, already angry, and set to ranting before she’d dismounted. No matter what we said, she was cruel and harsh in her words all the evening and left in a fury this morning. Now she’s come here, still angry, and would have nothing but you away from St. Frideswide’s. That’s all she’s said? That she wants you out of St. Frideswide’s?”

  “She says it over and over,” Thomasine said. “Her raging has her throat hurting and I’m to fetch milk sops and honey for it. I’ll be back as soon as may be. Pray pardon me.” Breathless with so much speaking, she curtseyed in haste and moved swiftly on across the yard.

  Chapter Four

  The place within the cloister where the world most boldly intruded was the kitchen. It was a squat, ugly room with two big roasting fireplaces and a bake oven in its farther wall, sturdy locked pantry cupboards against the other walls, and an array of heavy tables in its middle for the carving, mincing, kneading, mixing, setting out, and gathering in of whatever needed preparation for the meals of the day. Nor was there any pious silence here. Because there was such necessary work to be done – mostly by lay servants not under vows – the rule of silence did not hold; instead of hand signals and nods, there was ordinary conversation broken by curt orders, the words mixed among a secular clatter of dishes, clang of heavy iron pots, ring of large stirring spoons tossed from pan to counter, slap of bread being kneaded, whisht of knives slicing at vegetables and, more rarely, meat. And over all of that was almost always Dame Alys’ big voice, stronger than the noise and kitchen odors. Dame Alys was cellarer, second only to Domina Edith in the priory. She was in charge of overseeing labor, land, and buildings, and since St. Frideswide’s was too small to have a kitchener under her orders, Dame Alys saw to that office, too – food and drink and firewood and the kitchen itself.

  Word of Lady Ermentrude’s arrival had come this far already, and Dame Alys was in full cry. “So now we’re bound to cater to her drunk as well as stupid, are we? Her and that mighty baggage of followers.” Dame Alys slammed an iron stirring spoon down on a table to emphasize her wrath. Since she was a large-boned woman running to muscle rather than fat, the spoon bent visibly.

  The three women servants cast looks at one another and went on with their business. Although Dame Alys’s rages were as immense and sincere as her penances, she seldom actually injured anyone in them. But she was always more interested in venting spleen than in being soothed or hearing anyone’s helpful replies, and no one bothered saying anything.

  Now, straightening the spoon between her hands, she pointed it at Thomasine hesitating in the doorway and said, “You’re come to tell me she’s asking for her dinner already, aren’t you? Well, you can tell her from me I need more warning than that to set a proper meal under her nose. Would to God it were in my power to serve her as she deserves. Spoiled fish and rotten apples, with ditch water for a drink, that’s what she’d have. And I’d stand over her with a cleaver to make sure she ate and drank it all!”

  She paused to draw breath. Into the momentary lull Martha Hayward said, without looking up from a mixing bowl and whatever she was beating in it. “That would be enough to start a real feud between the Godfreys and the Fenners.”

  “What say you?” Dame Alys said indignantly. “There’s been no bloodshed as yet, but there’s feud all right. And the blood will come soon, too, if they don’t stop pushing to take our property away from us!”

  Martha, bold to grin at Dame Al
ys, said, “And meanwhile the lawyers’ cost enough to break both families. Aye, lawyers love a good quarrel between great families.”

  “Never you mind lawyers! It’s Lady Ermentrude who is the heart and soul of the Fenners wanting to grab what isn’t theirs. And may their souls be damned to hell for it and hers to the hottest part, amen. She’s a Fenner who married a Fenner and bred Fenner brats and that makes her thrice as bad as any of them and now she wants her dinner, la-de-dah. Ha!”

  “She’s no worse than many another great lady,” Martha Hayward said stubbornly. She was shorter than Dame Alys but nearly as broad, bulked out in fat from taking a serving size instead of a taste of anything that she judged in need of sampling. Along with her kitchen duties, she had collected little responsibilities such as seeing to the prioress’s greyhound, and so gave herself such airs that she felt secure enough to be rude to nearly everyone, save Domina Edith herself. Only three things kept her from being sent away: Her light hand with pastry, her skill in drawing the maximum of flavor from a minimum of costly spices, and the fact that she was there at Lady Ermentrude’s request, as she was always glad to mention, given the chance. “I was in her service most of my life and only left it because she lessened her household after her husband died, God rest him, and she was going to be a lady-in-waiting to the Queen. I’m here because she asked me to be, God bless her. So let me tell you if you don’t know already...”

  They did know already. Anyone who ever came within ear’s reach of Martha Hayward for any time at all knew everything about her and all she knew of Lady Ermentrude and every great personage who had ever crossed her path.

  Dame Alys slammed the spoon down again, this time onto a pot lid, which now would need a tinker to mend it, and said loudly over Martha’s flux of words, straightening the spoon as she did, “So why are you standing there all baa-eyed, child? What’s her ladyship wanting to eat this time? St. John’s bread and fresh-whipped cream?”

  “She’s ill,” Thomasine said hurriedly. “Dame Frevisse wants warm milk and sops with honey for her.”

  “Ill’s a nice name for it,” Dame Alys snorted. “The word that reached the kitchen was ‘drunk.’ So go on! You know how to do that much, don’t you? No, not my new bread,” she added as Thomasine moved toward the rows of cooling loaves that would go into the refectory for the nuns’ dinner. “Here, never mind, it will be quicker to do it myself.”

  Talking half to herself, Dame Alys went to a shelf beside a cabinet and took down a half loaf of bread. “Last week’s will do more than well enough for someone too ‘ill’ to know the difference. It’ll soften in the milk anyway. And where’s that pitcher of milk– Ah.” The small pitcher was on the hob, staying warm. Dame Alys took a clean pottery bowl from a shelf of them. She broke the bread into it and poured the warm milk over it. The honey was in another cupboard; she spooned a dollop into the mix and stirred it until the bread began to soften.

  All the while, she and Martha Hayward traded comments about whether or not there was a feud and how seriously Lady Ermentrude had involved herself in it. Just as she picked up the bowl to hand it to Thomasine, they both stopped. “Listen,” Dame Alys said.

  But they were already listening, heads turned and mouths open. Because somewhere someone was screaming. Thinned by distance and stone walls, a high and drawn out cry wavered, fell and rose again in agony.

  “Stand where you are!” Dame Alys slashed sideways with her spoon at the kitchen women as they began a surge for the door. “Whatever that racket is, it’s no concern of yours, and they’ll not be needing a gaggle of loons getting in their way! There’s plenty of work to keep you all right here!”

  The women halted – except for Martha Hayward. Already near the door, she kept going, with a speed and grace surprising for one of her bulk, not slowing even when Dame Alys shouted after her to return. Thomasine, the bowl with its warm milk, bread, and honey clutched in her hands, stood fast near a table, not daring to move – or wanting to, either. She had had enough of noise and madness this day. But Dame Alys, glaring around, said to her, “Well, why do you stand there as if you’ve grown roots? Didn’t they send you here to fetch that bowl of sops? Begone! If that unholy noise is from Lady Ermentrude, and likely it is from the ugliness of it, they’ll be wanting something to stop her mouth.”

  She underlined her orders with a thrust of the spoon, sending Thomasine out of the room in haste, but out of Dame Alys’s sight she immediately slowed. She could hear voices shouting in the courtyard beyond the cloister and slowed her pace more, but too soon she was at the door into the courtyard. It was wide open, with Martha Hayward standing just outside in happy admiration of the press of servants pushing among themselves toward the guest-hall steps, yelling their excitement or shouting an apt paternoster for salvation of the soul that was obviously being torn untimely from its mortal host. A half dozen of Lady Ermentrude’s dozen small dogs, doubtless let go by someone’s start of surprise, had tangled their leashes around legs in their flight and were now joyously fighting among themselves or yipping with pain at repeated kicks.

  An angry groom was trying to bring Isobel’s and Sir John’s horses out of the sudden mob, and there would have been injuries if the frightened animals had not been too exhausted to do more than swerve and half-rear. Sir John and Isobel, whose presence might have brought order, were not in sight.

  And over all the surge of noise and movement, from inside the guest hall scream after scream tore from a throat bursting with terror.

  “Lord!” marveled Martha Hayward. “She’s set them up right enough. Come, my lady, let’s see what it’s about this time.”

  Thomasine wanted to refuse, but had no excuse ready to hand. Besides, Dame Frevisse had told her to bring the milksops, and obedience was the one certain choice in this chaos. Clutching the bowl to her breast with both hands, she followed after Martha, a small boat in a barge’s wake. Martha pushed her way easily through the tangled crowd of servants, who would have blocked the way of anyone smaller and less determined. Her heavy shoves broke open a clot that blocked the guest-hall steps, giving her and Thomasine clear passage up to where someone in Lady Ermentrude’s livery was deliberately obstructing the doorway. Around Martha’s bulk, up the stairs, Thomasine recognized the youth who had helped her with Lady Ermentrude. Now he was refusing to let anyone in. Flushed with his efforts, his blue eyes bright with the challenge, he said, “Hold!” to Martha Hayward’s wordless thrust. He looked determined to stand his ground, but Martha turned and took Thomasine by the shoulder, bringing her forward and saying, “No, see, I’ve brought Thomasine, your lady’s favorite niece. Dame Frevisse bid her bring a milksop for Lady Ermentrude and here it is. Let us by.”

  The youth frowned, then nodded and stepped aside with a reluctant bow. Martha surged by with Thomasine in tow.

  Around the hall were scattered some few of Lady Ermentrude’s servants, frozen in listening positions. More were gathered gabbling at a far door leading to the hall’s best chamber. The screaming came from there but was broken now, as if breath or strength was failing.

  With no pretense of politeness, Martha bullied her way to the door and opened it. Thomasine tried to draw back then, not wanting to see whatever was beyond it, but Martha’s arm was strong from her years of kitchen labor, and Thomasine a good deal lighter than a barrel of salt herring. She found herself dragged helplessly in to where she least wanted to be.

  They must have brought Lady Ermentrude into the room with some thought of putting her to bed. Her shoes and stockings, hat and veil were off, her gown open at the throat, but they had gotten no further before the fit came on her. She was on the bed, her back against the high wooden headboard. Her face was purple with her mad effort and lack of breath as she flailed with arms and legs at anyone trying to come near her. This close to her there were words caught in among the screaming, words pulled out of shape and torn to pieces, but it seemed she was ranting of fire and burning and her soul.

  Dame Frevisse to o
ne side of the bed and one of her ladies-in-waiting to the other were stretched forward in a desperate attempt to take and control her arms, but they had no chance against a strength gone past sanity. Their occasional graspings seemed only to send her into a worse frenzy. She wrenched a hand free of Frevisse’s grasp to point wildly across the room at nothing.

  “T’ave coooom! Ear’s flaaaame!” she howled. Her eyes distended, her head thrown back to show the cords of her throat, she gagged for air, her wail raw with despair. She drew a fragment of breath and suddenly the words were clear: “God help! Save me!”

  * * * * *

  Frevisse, aware of someone coming into the room, looked around, and her eye was then caught by the large carved crucifix, painted in raw colors, hanging on the wall. She broke away from Lady Ermentrude and grabbed it down, finding it heavy in her hands as she went back to the bed to thrust it before Lady Ermentrude’s distended eyes. “My lady, look here!”

  Lady Ermentrude, mouth gaping in a desperate attempt to both scream and draw breath for another scream, choked. Her unfocused eyes glimpsed the crucifix, recognized it, and her hands fumbled out for it, grasped it, and dragged it to herself. Awkwardly, desperately, she pressed it to her lips, kissing it. It slid sideways onto her cheek, but she went on clinging to it as air whistled through her nostrils in a long-delayed need to simply breathe.

  In the trembling silence, with everyone around her frozen, waiting, Lady Ermentrude rolled her eyes sideways to Frevisse. Her jaw worked. In a barking whisper, she forced out, “Hell... fire... stop... it.”